Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
New guides help divers know what’s below
S. Florida reefs, wrecks mapped
Off the coast of South Florida lies an oasis filled with hundreds of reefs and wrecks — and there’s no shortage of divers and tourists who want to know everything about these treasures.
Because of demand, Palm Beach County officials have enlisted the help of a company to take pictures and make 3-D models of some of the region’s most popular underwater attractions.
Reef Smart Guides is a Canadian company that sells cards and guidebooks, after it travels to destinations to find out what divers need to know about reefs.
Palm Beach County’s guidebook will be released in January. Ian Popple, the company’s founder, has spent three weeks at sea, collecting photos of these reefs and wrecks to ready the guides. Divers will use them to know which fish species to expect, where to dive from and anything else they might want to know.
“It gives people a good example of what they are going to experience under the water,” he said.
This isn’t the first time the company has visited South Florida. It mapped 30 sites in Broward County last summer, and that guidebook is coming out in October.
Popple will finish mapping 35 sites in Palm Beach County next week, of the 160 artificial reefs that dot the county’s coast.
When Popple and Reef Smart Guides’ creative director Otto Wagner are finished, they will fly back to Montreal and use the photos they took to build models of each reef and wreck.
Popple’s invitation for
this summer was extended by Jena McNeal, Palm Beach County’s artificial reef coordinator, who asked local diving businesses what they wanted, and many told her maps of the reefs they visit, she said.
She said this is the first time advanced images of artificial reefs have been recorded locally. There doesn’t appear to be another company like Reef Smart Guides in the United States, she said.
She recruited Popple and his team — with funding help from the tourism council — to stay in town, map the reefs and put out a guidebook that would list other marine attractions in the county.
Reef Smart Guides sells $10 cards for each reef and plans to sell $30 guides for Broward and Palm Beach counties. McNeal said they could be keepsakes for tourists.
“They’re great for people looking to buy something to take home with them that reminds them of their trip,” she said.
It’s also a way to preserve the environment. If the guides take divers to artificial reefs, such as wrecked boats, then they may keep away from natural reefs that are easily damaged, said Ashley Svarney, the senior director of public relations for Discover the Palm Beaches.
“When people are around the reefs, they maybe aren’t wearing the right sunscreens, or sometimes they actually touch the reefs, so by steering divers toward the artificial reefs, that allows the natural reefs to remain,” she said.
Svarney said Palm Beach County is the closest shore to the Gulf Stream, so its reefs attract more diverse marine life. While Popple has mapped other sites internationally, including Barbados and St. Lucia, he hasn’t done a project of this magnitude in the United States, he said.
The 3-D images Popple and his team collect are made using computer programs and pictures they take of each site. They hope to launch an app for downloadable models, which would enable divers to see their destination in greater detail before they dive.
There are challenges to underwater mapping. Popple knows that anything he photographs, even a large vessel, could suddenly end up elsewhere on the ocean floor. That’s what happened last year when Hurricane Irma swept through the region. It caused the Okinawa, a 107-foot tugboat that had been recently sunk off Broward County, to shift 300 feet, roll on its side and end up facing a different direction.
“It was if it had literally disappeared,” Popple said.
Although Popple had finished his data collection last summer, he returned after the hurricane to check on some sites and make adjustments to the models, including to nail down the Okinawa’s new location.
Although Popple can usually take 360-degree photos of a site in one dive, it has taken longer in Palm Beach County because of some unusual photo-bombing.
Goliath grouper keep getting in his way. He’s not used to seeing the massive fish — which are as long as 8 feet — especially in such a large quantity, he said.
The goliath grouper spawning season is from August to September, and Palm Beach County is a great spot to see that.
“I was blown away to start seeing so many of them in the water,” Popple said. “There’s so many, we can’t see the wreck. So we have to be a little bit patient.”
After some waiting, the fish swam away and the divers had an unobstructed view of the wreck.